Plural vs. Singular – it usually is an either or when you’re talking about domain names

It’s a question that comes up a lot when people are looking at one-word domain names. In most cases it’s pretty clear if the singular will sell for more than the plural. Here are a few examples where the singular is without a doubt (or without any doubts from me for whatever that’s worth) the singular is worth a lot more than the plural:

Fast.com vs. Fasts.com

Buy.com vs. Buys.com

Search.com vs. Searches

Find.com vs. Finds.com

And the list goes on. Seriously, there are a lot of singular domain names that get crushed in value once you add an “s” or “es” to the end. Of course, there’s also the opposite case but I’d say it’s pretty darn rare to find a domain that is equally valuable in both forms. That being said, of course there are plenty of domains out there that are valuable in both cases, but I’d say the vast majority are not. Just to play devils advocate, here are a few domains that where it would be hard to say one is more valuable than the other:

Car.com vs. Cars.com

Hotel.com vs. Hotels.com

Picture.com vs. Pictures.com

So here’s the question. Is there a hard and fast rule you can apply to really “known” if a domain is more valuable in it’s singular or plural form? Is exact-match search volume a good way to estimate? What do you think? Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton